First there was annoying telemarketing calls, then spam and spyware junk on our personal computer. Now it is on to our cell and smart phones? Thus the day and age we live in ladies and gentleman. A term called "SMiShed" could be something you hear more about in 2007. What is it and what does it mean? Well the actual term SMiShed was birthed by the McAfee anti-virus company. SMiShed was a term to describe phishing by means of text messaging or SMS (short message service). I may have lost some of you, but I urge you to read on. First a simple definition about what is phishing. Phishing is done by someone/persons trying to fraudulently gain access to sensitive information such as passwords, credit card information, or bank account pin numbers. This usually is done by masquerading a web page to look like a bank web site, ebay, or another otherwise credible company. Where SMiShing comes in is through your cell phone. You could receive a text message, for example saying that unless you visit a certain website to subscribe/unsubscribe to something, that you could be charged a certain amount of money. This folks is a scare tactic. Unless you sign up for a service, it's not possible for a company to charge you for something. If someone does go to this site, it is possible that this website could be as innocent as trying to sell you something, or as harmful as trying to download virus and/or software without your knowledge or consent. What should you do? Well first thing I suggest is to contact your mobile phone carrier. Let them know as much information as you can about the message. So don't delete it until after the information has been given. Mobile carriers are involved with lawsuit trying to stop spam and smishing from happening via cell phones. Not only is it annoying, but you the consumer are charged a fee for a text message that you didn't even want or ask for. But by all means DO NOT go to the site given within the smish message. I can even see scenarios where infiltration of your phone lists as a way of making this scam happen. This could make it seem like the message is legitimate because it came from someone you knew, just like an email scam could be done. The smart phone certainly makes our lives easier, but we also have to be smart about a more sophisticated way for persons to be scammed. SMiShing is an example of this. Let's hope this is ironed out with these lawsuits. If you have comments, or if something like this has happened to you please let me know.
This is my post, lets hear from you.
Rodney G.
